curmudgeon

OB, hooked refers to an applicant that has a "hook", a trait, or sometimes almost a gimmick without the negative connotation, if you will, that moves the app upwards a notch , maybe two. Examples at some schools might be gender, urm status, foreign, athlete they need, oboeist they need, first generation college, or geographic diversity. Some hooks are far more valuable at some schools than others. For example D's gender at RPI may be a hook, whereas D 's female status at Vassar-no hook. D being from the SW, is maybe a small hook at Hamilton or Colby, no hook at Harvard-plenty of Texans. A "tip" OTOH is something that will tip a candidates app one way or the other, if it is sitting on the fence. A "tip" is generally considered less than a hook and is mostly used (it seems ) to describe a coach that gets one or two admits, and a certain number of tips (qualified , yes-but just that extra nudge). A tip is less than a hook. At least that is my understanding.